Tag: equipment

I have often been frustrated with the task of oiling the chain on my motorbike, I want a Scottoiler but I don’t want to pay for it. So I built something that would do the same sort of thing only temporarily. When you want to oil the chain, you fix it on, go for a small ride or spin the wheel a bit, then take it off again.

Requirements

Easy to put on and take off

will spread lubricant evenly on the chain

cost effective

The basic idea I came up with was to place a rag on the chain with oil flowing onto it at a slow rate, the oil would spread over the rag and onto the chain. This is how I built it.

I had intended to attach it either by using the rear stand thread but I didn’t have any bolts that size, but I found a piece of wood would very happily wedge into the swing-arm very tightly. I took an off cut, drilled a hole through it at 9mm then applied a piece of 10mm threaded rod to it (installed the thread into the wood very happily, the threaded rod was tightly stuck in there.

An ‘arm’ was needed to reach down to the chain, so another off cut was attached with a couple washers and bolts. This also meant I could adjust the angle to suit when on the bike.

Then I built the oiling base itself, I made two because the first one wasn’t large enough to be drilled again for the second rod. Basically its a small off cut with a 5m hole drilled in it for the hose.

Inserting the oil flow tube.

The “oiling system” is a folded up rag. I kept the rag and the block the width of the chain to keep the oil where it should be.

I used electrical tape to keep it on. Electrical tape works here because of its ability to stretch. whilst it doesn’t stick to the wood etc. It’s basically working like a rubber-band in this instance.

Its looking good here, but because I cant really attach it to anything I remade it slightly larger, The threaded rod is the second arm between the first and the base, I used threaded rod again so I could adjust the distance.

This is the full mount set. The small block on the right is the wedge for the swing arm, then there is the arm that goes down to the chain. Then the rod that goes inwards to the right distance to place the oiling block where it should be. Bolts for Africa to keep everything in place.

Installed on the bike:

I was a little surprised at how sturdy it is. you would expect with wood, tape, bolts, threaded rod, and something that’s just wedged into the swing-arm to be quite fragile, but its pretty solid.

At the other end of the tube is an adapter I had made earlier for a standard soft drink bottle. I drilled a hole that was 1m too small and used a small off cut of another tube to make the base. some hot glue to seal and then inserted the smaller tube. I didn’t have any hose clamps handy so used some 20 gauge wire to make my own clamp sort of thing. works well 🙂

So now I have my oil input ready. for testing its just sitting in the pillion foot peg.

Ideally I will have a small, thin, seal-able tube that has a screw thread on both ends that I can use to put the right amount of oil in, and maybe it has a gauge so I can see how fast its draining etc. but for now; the top of a sprite bottle will do.

So I put some oil in the “reservoir” and let it flow through. the tube thickness and oil viscosity control the rate at which oil gets onto the chain. and it was flowing through the tube at about 1cm per second, which was perfect. The oil goes through the rag and onto the chain as expected. I am a bit slow here, I was too busy taking pictures and musing to start rotating the wheel which is why that small drop is on the bottom. the idea is you pour the oil in and go for a ride around the street to drain it. Today I just tilted the bike on the stand and manually rolled the wheel, this worked just as well.

Full system off the bike (excluding reservoir)

Overall, this was a resounding success. It does everything I wanted for very little cost (I had everything already) Its not too fragile, its not too bulky, and it actually works!

Possible improvements

I would like a better ‘wedge’ system perhaps some sort of clamp that fits on the underside of the swingarm

I wanted to purchase a new camera with some good macro options to get better project shots. I also wanted to experiment with a bit of amateur macro photography for a bit of fun. But my budget, as always, was about $0.

Project considerations

Low cost

Can’t modify existing camera

Can be removed or attached easily

Works…

The first thing I needed was a new lens. I picked up a Macro Zoom Ring +10 Diopter from trademe for $15NZD which was pretty similar to this :

My budget point-and-click camera obviously couldn’t mount it so I needed to make some things….

First I needed to make a small extension tube for the lens, and some way of mounting it to the camera. Conveniently, the first thing I laid my hands on, the cap of a bottle of degreaser, just so happened to hold the lens quite snugly. I secured it with black electrical tape, and also wrapped the cap with it several times to block out the light. Then, I cut a hole in the top of the cap, around the size of the existing camera extension tubes so that it could fit snugly on there.

NB: Cutting through the plastic is much easier with the tape applied. It meants it doesn’t crack when cutting it.

To mount it to the camera, I built a small perspex base that attached to the bottom of the camera and extended forward so that I could attach the lens and its extension tube to it. When I attached the camera and placed the macro lens onto the mount, it seemed to hold itself in there quite well. (although I may add another bolt to secure it firmly…)

Now all I need to do is turn the camera on, the lens moves into the hole and I can take macro shots!

(5 July 2010) – Power and Drills

First thing I needed for my generator was either cogs or a pulley/belt system to drive the washing machine engine. I thought about several different options from buying old car pulleys/belt, using a bevel/helical gear, or building my own cogs/gears/pulleys on the cheap.

I decided the cheapest option (since all my projects try to be as low cost as possible) for me is to try manufacture my own pulley’s from wood.
I needed a few things,

I had an old portable battery drill that had a battery that was dead and generally ready for the trash, I figured I could wire it into the mains and turns out I was able to find an old ATX PSU that put out enough power, so I snipped all the ATX connectors down fit inside case, covered the ends up with heatshrink (didn’t want one accidentally touching something) and rigged up a switch and so on so I could run it like a lab power supply.

(This PSU came in quite handy for other 12v (ish) projects like a peltier effect device I am playing around with.)

So now I have power, then I removed the casing of my drill battery pack, removed all the battery’s and chucked them (they were quite corroded) then basically clamped two cables to the connectors that go inside the drill, unfortunately it wouldn’t let me solder them on so I ended up turning the metal sheet over to clamp the cable in. I tied a knot in the cables before the hole so they wouldn’t tug on the connection. Then ran about 2.5m of cable out to a Molex Plug I picked up from jaycar so I could plug it neatly into the PSU.

I ended up buying a hole saw, I didnt have anything I could modify to make that, but it was only $20.

For the Lathe/Wood turner I found I could bolt the wood I wanted into work with into the drill, and mount the drill into a small vice and I used a rope tied around the trigger, around a nail, down to a metal level so I had it foot controlled. but I talk about this more in part 2.

(17 July 2010) – New Wood Turner

Ive started working on a new wood turner (I cant really call it a lathe as its shaft reliant) pics now, further update coming later.

(click for big)

the offcuts from the MDF I was using to make the pulley’s is used (leave no wood scraps behind) so its all odd shapes, its almost artistic! I just need to cut the bottom to a standard height, mount it to a small board, then figure out what ill mount that to. Probably make it like a vice that can be moved around, bench mountable, I also need to make another end that holds the other side of the shaft so that the shaft is stable, not able to move around, which is the biggest problem with the drill-in-a-vice “lathe”.

(28 July 2010) – New Wood Turner: Wiring

I finished wiring and testing the new setup. Power comes off the other psuedo drill pack and I’ve just hacked the bottom off the drill I am using for the turning. Power then goes too the jandal controller for analogue (ie: more presssure more speed) control of the motor. I mounted the original drill control into a recess into the bottom jandal and glued the jandals together. then it goes off to the drill in the mount.